The quiet in between times are my favored friends

The only things I care about are things which use my brain… so there is an intellectual solitude which is like the solitude of the desert—dangerous to one's sanity. {Clelia Mosher}

Warning, the word orgasm appears in the post. A few time.

I've been doing Satyananda yoga for twenty years. More. Since 1991. Ok, that is twenty years.


Right about the same time I stopped doing University level Maths I started doing yoga.


I've never really been committed to it, I'd go to a few classes, love it, then would get interested in a boy or a book or a boy who liked books and I'd stop.

I recall my first class, I didn't want to go as I thought I was as too fat and unfit to do yoga. I was 68 kilograms and rode my bike 7kms to and from Uni. We had to lie on the floor and imagine we were cold, well, of course I burnt up, and then imagine we were warm and I froze.

Turns out that I'm quite flexible, that one's size has nothing to do with one's flexibility, and the really cool thing about satyananda yoga is that it is non-competitive, most of the class is done with one's eyes closed.
It took me 15 years to cotton on to the fact that I don't need to be better or worse than anyone else in yoga, I don't even have to compete or motivate myself, all my teacher asks is that we stretch ourselves, mentally and physically, but not strain.

At the end of last year, after 20 years as a beginner, my teacher, the fabulously young and wonderful and quite strict Mel said, you are ready for intermediate now Catharine.

I panicked, I wrote her emails about my knees and my lap band and my work schedule and my shoulder and my asthma.

She was wonderful and didn't respond. Until finally one day she replied that she thought I would be fine, but I could go back to beginners if I felt uncomfortable.

Guess what? It is harder and it does stretch me more,

And I love love love love it.

I think that yoga, intermediate yoga, with it's focus on meditation and slightly stronger asanas -postures - is really helping me with balance and is distilling a quite repose in me that I've not felt, ever, but I think I've been seeking.

Meditation, when one is deep into the practice, is amazing. Your mind and body are still, your breathing almost imperceptible, and you are in a place where you can no longer feel the sensations in your body, and there are no thoughts, no feelings, you are completely aware, and yet detached from the whole body. It's kinda like orgasm, without the build up and release, but you know that moment just before release and just after, taking away all the heavy breathing and the collapse its kinda like that stillness. Where nothing else matters. And everything is blissful and possible and clean.

And the meditation is allowing me to see my life as an observer, rather than reacting and judging and having over-opinionatedness, it is just allowing me to accept and be.

Well, I'm not Zen like all the time. In fact, most of the time I'm possibly the antithesis of Zen like. Today, for instance, I woman rang me up for the recipe for the fruit cake competition and I snapped at her that it was on the website.

She is 97. And really a sweet woman.

But, I am becoming more serene, especially between the hours of 6 and 8 on a Wednesday night.

No joke

I feel like life just gave me a defect notice.

I've just had a crappy afternoon get bad. Really bad. And part of it is my fault and part of it just life being a contrary, belligerent, malevolent minx.

And I can't even eat my way out of it.

I remember when I used to be able to eat and eat and eat and my serotonin levels would fake-rise for a while to make me forget how to feel.

And that beautiful moment between forgetting the anxiety and the despair and the fear, and being swallowed whole by guilt and self loathing, that is the home I seek now.

But I know that food, not matter what sort, wont fix it.

But nor can I walk/ talk/ write my way out of these feelings.

My shrink often asks me if I could 'sit' with them.

But to let these feeling settle about me is like inviting necrosis into my heart.

I really don't want to sit still and 'feel' the pain. I just can't. I wont. I don't want to.

It's too overwhelming. To awful. To shocking.

I want the horror to be taken away by another. Someone. Anyone. I am not enough to cope with this. I'm stupid and fat and lazy. Well, I'm not fat. I mean, I don't feel fat.

But I do feel helpless and hopeless.

If food has deserted me what now? If chocolate can no longer give me the fix I need, where can I find relief? Do you know someone who pimps happiness? 

...

    .....

A Post Script: 

I've sat here for a little while looking at a few facebook pictures from a town I used to live in, a town I'm very fond of. A town where I found out a lot about me, and the sort of woman I was becoming.

And I searched the thesaurus for synonyms for, well, unprintable nouns relating to prostitution (not to do with the town I lived in).

And I thought about people, not matter how much you love them, and they love you, that you need to stand back, and see them whole against the sky (thank you Rilke and DH). That you can't expect others to magic away your problems. Just like food doesn't fix it, neither can other people. Part of that same coin is that one must learn how to be vulnerable and a tough cookie all at the same time.

And you know what happened? Somewhere in all of that thinking, the grenade made of barred wire and the rotting flesh of good intentions, somewhere somehow it became a soft core of despondency.  Sans chocolate. Sans hot chips. Sans food. Sans a fairy godmother or the gentle cooing of a mate. It's still there, the anxiety ball, but it's more blue than bitter. More heavy heart that hatred. 

You can't change people. You can't change the world.

But you can be the change you wish to see. (thank you Gandhi)

Now, I must hope back in the car and go and do some repair and reconnaissance. 

Oh, and did you notice, I think I did write myself out of a hellishly big panic attack, I seem to have shrunk it from malignant to benign. I will need a bowl of nourishing zucchini and white bean soup, a bath, and perhaps a chat to my best fried before I go to bed (early). But you know, one can't fix Rome in a day. 

Hansel and Gretel

I‘m proposing a new country shows competition called ‘Hansel and Gretel: Post visit’

I took my husband and my niece, Bella, 5, to the annual Berwick Show on the weekend. I chose Berwick for a few reasons, it fit with my ‘one show a month’ goal, it is close to town, and when I asked the Showmen’s Guild vice president he raved about it. Indeed everyone I spoke to raved about it.

We arrived at about 2, just in time to see the cattle judging and the grand parade. Of animals. And a few jazzed up Ford Ute. I was pleased not to see a waving Miss Country Showgirl in the back of a Ute.

I did my official business and then succumbed to Bella’s pulling of my hand in the direction of the show rides. I hate heights. I hate sideshow alley. And I hate fairy floss. Plus I’d been fighting a panic attack all morning. But I’m always taken by how pretty and odd and big the Ferris Wheel is, and bought two tickets. I remembered my fear of heights as soon as the carriage began its climb into the sky. My niece, never having been to a show or on a Ferris Wheel, jumped up in glee, ‘look Tia Catharine, you can see the whole village’. She really said village. Question: When did an Australian town become a fairytale village? Answer: When viewed from the clouds by a five year old.

By the third round I loosed my grip of the central steel pole in the capsule enough to snap a few pictures. By the fifth I eyed the ride operator in what I thought was desperation. On the fifteenth I telephoned my Showmen’s Guild contact and asked, very nicely, if he wouldn’t mind letting me out. Before I passed out. ‘Oh’, said Clay, ‘we thought you were enjoying it, and ya know, we wanted to look after you and your little un…’

Yeah right. I know where you live Clay. Or at least where you work. But really, thanks, we, I mean Bella, loved it. She has requested that the Tea Cup ride be at the next show she attends.

Next we toured the pavilions. Pavilions, for all you non-showy people, are where the competitions are. The fruit cakes, the photographs, the art work, the Mr Potato Heads, the cross stitch, the best wrapped gift box (no, I’m not joking, this is a legitimate competition and has age sections). The biggest, the best, the most beautiful, this, my friends, is where ‘Showing Victoria’ happens, in the pavilions.

On the way found the alpaca’s. When I say ‘found’, I mean stumbled right into the middle of the judging, if my niece had gotten down on all fours and ‘baaa’ed’ she might have won a ribbon. I’d been lead to believe that alpaca’s were grumpy, mean, smelly animals. After my experience I beg to differ. They are sweet natured, well behaved, soft, gentle animals. Except the one that kicked Geoff. But I’m sure it was having a bad day. I did warn him about the double-jointed hip motion of the South American camelids. We noticed lots of Land Rovers and BMW four-wheel drives which lead us to surmise that alpaca farming must be an excellent tax dodge. I had the pleasure of feeling an alpaca fleece and it was silky and delicate and buttery. I think I’ll look for an alpaca wrap for winter.  

We steered Bella past Show Bag Street and onto the horses. ‘Look, small niece, at all the pretty horses, quick, let’s go and watch them before they have to go home and go to bed.’

There was a kerfuffle on the arena. The Showjumping was to be after the V8 Ute synchronised swimming demonstration (you know, all these cars spin about and leap in the air and look like they belong in an aqua musical featuring Ester Williams.)

The horse committee were having a face off with the arena director about the potential state of the ground after the cars had had their fun. The crowd grew restless. An announcement came over the PA ‘There will now be a very slow motorcar demonstration from Ford…’ The cars pranced about the field. Then it was the horses turn. Both were very beautiful, well choreographed, and well received by the crowd.

By this stage I was a tired little show-goer. The other two were anxious to go on more rides, so we made a rendezvous for the entertainment tent. I found a seat and watched ‘Show Idol’. I was glad that it was in the shade, near the coffee cart and ice-cream van and away from the screeching sideshows. What I hadn’t expected was a talent show of such, well, talented performers. From five year old bush balladeers to sixty year old rappers to a fourteen year old girl with a voice reminiscent of Missy Higgins, all the contestants were fantastic. I was clapping and tapping and at one time, silently sobbing, with the rest of the crowd.  Sadly my favourite did not win, a Delta Goodrem clone fanned herself and fake-coyly accepted the first place sash. I gave my girl a wink and told her, as she walked past me, that I thought she was great. In true tortured artist form she ducked her head under her wing, scuffed the dirt and muttered ‘nah, I was crap’.

My family telephoned me to say that they had been given free tickets to the Merry-Go-Round and could they meet me at the fruit cakes in half an hour? So I wandered over to the Arts and Crafts pavilion to study perhaps the most cherished of all show competitions: cakes.

I oohed and ahhed in all the right places, marvelled at the intricate embroidery, took notes on perfect patchwork and poured over bottles of preserves and little plates of shortbread and fairy cakes. Then I saw it. A crumbled gingerbread house with a sign: ‘Category three storm blew house over.’

And it was the prettiest, most luscious, annihilated gingerbread house one could ever hope to see. I was told that pre-collapse it was a triple storied replica of a Portsea beach house. It was explained to me that it survived the judging on Wednesday, but shortly after it won first place in the ‘Open Three Storied Gingerbread Beach House’ section the roof bowed. On Thursday morning it began its elegant demise and my Saturday it lay in beautiful ruinous biscuit loveliness. Apparently it was the heat. These European gingerbread recipes are not meant to withstand four days of competition in the height of the Australian summer. The steward anxiously asked me if the should remove it (an exhibit is only removed from the show under extreme and extra ordinary circumstances.) I pleaded with them to keep it. Too often we are obsessed with the perfect, the best, the biggest, when it is beautifully broken things, people, situations, that flavour our day.

The look of bewilderment on the steward’s face should have told me I’d said the wrong thing. But I persisted with my intellectual abstractions until interrupted by my husband, loudly, asking why a broken biscuit had won first prize…

The Berwick Show was first class. And I haven’t even mentioned the amazing Dutch pancakes, the really really good (fair-trade) coffee, the extensive and excellent photography exhibits, the amazing display of turn of the (one before last) century farm machinery, the lovely people, the happy crowds, the beautiful cattle, the funny and entertaining novelty equestrian events. And the fireworks. We had a ringside seat. Everyone did. I expected a few minutes reminiscent of Friday nights in Coober Pedy (another blog post for another time). I was wrong. Very wrong. A prodigious pyrotechnic display ensured. Even I could tell it was well choreographed and executed. My husband loves fireworks and he’s viewed them at the Sydney Olympics, at Christmas time in Disneyland and in Paris on Bastille Day. One might call him a firework chaser. And even Sir Geoffrey was impressed.

I’m sure the Berwick Show will be a permanent fixture on the Redden-Hodder calendar.

Now, who do I see about a new competition for broken gingerbread houses?

The Princess and the Tic Tac

Today I got up and did my 'at home' yoga practice. And I was creaky and starchy to begin with, but after a little while my body softened and mid Salute to the Sun so did my mind. I ended my session sitting cross legged with my blanket wrapped around me and ohming a little.

I felt calm, unafraid and hopeful.

Something I am unused to on Sunday afternoons.

And then I went for a bike ride.  On my own. For about the first time since 1979. 

I rode to the site of the Strathmore Community Garden, it took about 40 minutes all up, I did get off and rest a little at the garden.

I huffed and puffed a little. And I had fun.

I was reminded of when I started jogging (and I will again) during PT sessions. It panicked me when I became short of breath and my heart muscle strained. It was the fear in my chest, the constriction, the not knowing if my body could take me where I needed it to go that was almost made me stop. Almost.

What I found when I jogged, ran or rowed is that I have this inbuilt - thing - that pushes me. That thrives on the challenge. That enjoys the climb. That likes the pain. And feling strong and tall and vital. At the moment it's about the size of a tic tac. 


After my Nanna died I burried that tic tac under twenty mattresses and l laid twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.

But today I reckon I removed the first eider-down. Or at least turned it down for the night. Sans chocolate on the pillow.


When I huffed and puffed on my bike today instead of panicking I enjoyed it. 


Me, unfit, too-big-for-my-body me. Enjoying exercise.


My beautiful red-haired trainer used to say I had an athletes body and big activity friendly lungs. I'd look at him, and say Lucas, everyone knows lungs is a euphemism for breasts and he'd look back and say what's a euphemism?


I remember running up 20 flights of stairs (ok, walking, crawling, lurching, inch by inch) and loving it.


Loving.



So I am really pleased about my 4 bewitching activity points today (Weight Watcher speak). I don't think I'll eat them. They look too pretty up there on the shelf. Like macaroons.

Beautiful.

The Southern Cross, The Red Suede Open Toed Sling Backs and the Worm Farm

I love the stars. Even the names are seductive; Andromeda, Pegasus, Centaurus. Then of course are the ones that sound like brands, or names from popular fiction; Lynx, Draco, Aquila. And my very favourite: Corona Australis.
I now realise that authors and advertising gurus have been plagiarising from the Greeks for almost as long as the Greeks have been naming beautiful things beautiful names.
In February 1986 my Dad and I watched Halley’s Comet. We lived in a little town and my mother was a teacher at the school, so we ‘borrowed’ the big telescope for a few nights and set it up on the front lawn. Dad knocked on my door in the belly of the night and I crept crept creept out. Before I went to bed I was warned by my mother ‘not to wake the boys’. So of course I trod on every chirring board and my little brothers, with a nose for things their sister was going to get to do that did not involve them, had in fact, being playing cars under their bed until they heard creaking floorboard, popped their heads out of their bedroom door and opened their not-so-innocent eyes and Dad said ‘oh, alright, you’re up now’. Mum did not get up. I’d say she enjoyed the hours we were on the front lawn, no little bottoms wiggling in her face, trying to surreptitiously slide in between her and Dad, no daughters crying because of a dragon under her bed (Catharine has an over active imagination was a common comment on my report card.)
I did not see Halley’s Comet. I pretended I did. But I did not. I saw lots of other pretty stars, and the moon, and even a few satellites. I had been hoping for a whoosh in the sky, a ball of white and silver and a trail perfect cosmic dust. Maybe a sash and a crown and Halley stopping for a moment to wave and bow to us, declaring that world peace was her only wish and then she would tell us to be good and kind or she wouldn’t come again in 76 years.
I did not see this comet nor did not see Halley’s Comet. I very much doubt that my little brothers saw it either ‘Dad, Dad I can see it, over there, under the bird bath’ ‘No, Hamish, that is a bird poo. You need to actually look in the telescope to see the comet’
One constellation I see regularly is the Southern Cross. It is my touchstone. I miss it when I am in the Northern Hemisphere. When I loved and lived in the outback I would sit on my little upstairs verandah at night and look at the Southern Cross and imagine it hanging over my parent’s house, back on the farm. I’d picture Mum feeding the dogs late at night having finished her marking and putting away the tea things, and upon discovering a bone in the fridge she would go and visit Linda the Minda up the back, near the chooks, and hoick the bone into her kennel. I could see Mum looking at the Southern Cross and joining the stars and finding north. Just like she taught me to do before I went on my first school camp. In case I got lost.
I loved the isolation of living in the desert, with the dry road and the mail once a week and the laconic locals. And I hated it too.

I don’t have a love-hate relationship with my shoes. I have a love-love relationship with them. I also love my friends. And I don’t mind margaritas. So, a couple of Friday nights ago I went out for dinner with some friends, to a Mexican place, and drank a few margaritas. I had on my usual Friday uniform, ‘Marry my daughter’ jeans, black wrap around top that flattered the good bits, long dangly earrings, and my sueded, peep toe red Thierry Rabotin’s. They have a buckle just before the peep bit. I could run the Mothers Day Classic in these shoes. They have a Maserati look about them, a feminine curve at the arse and a sleek feline nose.
I am writing a novel. One of my characters comes from Scotland. I know nothing about Scotland. Originally my protagonist came from Ireland, but it just wasn’t working and was talking to a friend from Scotland he said ‘why don’t you give him an Irish mother and a Scottish father and have him come from Scotland’. So I said ok. I am not sure this is how one is meant to write a novel, by chance collaboration, but it seems to be working.
So, I am drunk on Friday. I have had a lovely dinner and a few (ish) drinks with my mates who laughed at my jokes and told me I had nice shoes. Life is grand. I cab it home and talk football with the Punjabi taxi driver. I ask the driver to drop me at the end of the street so I can stealthily plan my ambush on Chez Home-Sweet-Home. Without waking my husband. My planned surprise attack on the house fails spectacularly, my keys drop, and my handbag follows suit, disgorging female sediment onto the stoop, I abandon Plan A and hammer on the door shouting ‘you could have left the bloody light on’ and I wake the neighbours tantrumy dog. It is not really a dog. It is a bad-tempered, certifiable Tasmanian devil in a small dog’s costume.
My husband is cross with me for waking him up. Quite right too, and sadly he does not want to make me any more margaritas. This is not right. So I have a wee Princess Cranky Pants tantrum about the unfairness of drinking alone. The man of the house stomps to bed and I take down the first bottle of alcohol my fumbling fat fingers can hold. The Zacapa rum. From Guatemala. It is smooth and delicate and orgasmic. But I am drunk, so it is a waste (this will be pointed out to me over and over and over again in the next few days, weeks, months and I suspect, decades…)


I turn on my computer and there is my friend, my Scottish friend, lazing about on MSN on the other side of the world, so I decide it is an excellent time to do some research for my book.


Richie, I type, it is all your fault.

(Here is what actually appeared on the screen: asfkhwe fhry ajrkr fucking wanker)


Miss Redden, did you just swear at me? I am a delicate Scot.


I decide to use Skype, but I can’t remember my pass word. I spy my house phone, but can’t dial the numbers. I am getting a bit cross and look out the window and see my beautiful Southern Cross. It is a little cloudy. I feel for the key to the back door in my pocket and find my mobile. I only need to push one button on here to get Richie, hurray! (Yes, I will get chastised about this in the coming next few days, weeks, months and I suspect, decades)

I can not remember the conversation. The only real proof I have is the wee mobile telephone bill that kindly arrived mid-fight about my shoe budget. Thank you Telstra, for your contribution to marital harmony.
Richie tells me I wanted to show him the Southern Cross, but it was cloudy, so I decided that I could get on the roof and move the clouds and show him. He then says that I decided to use the worm farm as a stepping stone to get to the hot water service and then the final step to the heavens would be easy. He says he tried to dissuade me, but I am not convinced. I can distinctly remember Scottish cackling down the line and wishes for the Skype camera to be working so he could see my fall from grace up close and personal.


There were several flaws to my plan. One, the worm farm is plastic and not used to goddess sized women clambering on it, two it was raining, three our roof has a steep pitch, four, the hot water service is, well, hot. Five would be, as dear reader you have already (correctly) surmised, the margaritas and half a bottle of rum I consumed.

I woke up five hours later, cold, grumpy, facedown on the cement. I dragged my aching, spinning body to bed. Only to be woken at sparrows by a grumpy yell ‘Catharine, you drank half the bloody rum. Catharine we were saving that for a special occasion. Catharine the mother fucking back door is wide open. Catharine Margaret Redden get down here now! (Insert 46 exclamation marks)’


I was hoping for a nice cup of tea.

When I slinked into the kitchen my husband looked at me and dropped his glass of juice.

‘Bloody hell love, what happened to your face?’

I said the first thing that came into my mind, and what I thought to be the truth.
It's mascara

Have you got red mascara?
Yes, is it the new Chanel ‘Vamp’ range, do you like it?
My husband went to work and I got down to the business of tracing my movements and trying to collect missing bits of my memory. And wardrobe. The big problem was my shoes. I could not find them.

Then I felt a cold breeze through the back door, and saw the rain on the tiles.

…
Now, do no panic dear reader. I know what you are thinking ‘water and suede don’t mix’. But, never fear, it is amazing what cobblers can do these days, and I had religiously water proofed my licentious red shoes. So, though I could not see my shoes, I was sure they would be ok.

I searched out the back and found a few missing items: my little black telephone, an earring I did not know was lost, stockings, worm farm lid.
Worm farm lid. Nowhere near the worm farm. So I made to put it back on, and there were my shoes. Ungraciously, wantonly, in the worm farm. Slutting about. Enjoying the company of apple cores and tea leaves and pineapple heads and last weekends Age. The seemed right at home, the little tramps. Sprawled about, making new friends, no regard for me at all. I screamed and scoped them out and sent them to their room to have a good hard think about what they had just done. By-pass time-out. Go straight to the locked cupboard. No supper for you.


There is a nice end to this story of my promiscuous shoes. The diligent water-proofing enabled Joe the wonder Cobbler to breathe life back into my sexy shoes. They are not the same; they are tainted, and a little crinkled, not as sparkly fresh as they were. But we have both grown from this experience and are looking forward to many more years of comfortable, mutual domesticity. But the roof is off limits. As is the Guatemalan rum.

Margaritas anyone?

I don't want

I don't want to be skinny by Easter.

I don't want to be thinner than my best-friend.

I don't want to fit into my mothers going away outfit (though it is a divine turquoise shot silk Chanel number, lined in purple silk)

I don't want to buy a dress size starting with just one number for a family wedding next summer.

I don't want to weigh less than my sister-in-law

I don't want to be an inspiration to my  niece (I want to hold her hand and tell her that being a kid is a beautiful gift, not to be missed, and to worry about eating pasta at eight is to try and worry the world away)

I don't want to be a Weight Watcher leader.

I don't want to lose the most weight or the least.

I don't want to agonise over points and bananas

I don't want to hide, or cry, or be shy in front of my own body.

I just want to be me.

(I really do want to fit into Mum's going away outfit, a shift dress that hits above my knee, and a box jacket, with big brass military buttons and those flap things on the shoulders)

Technology

Dear Readers

All two of you (the third follower is really me) (I'll bet you couldn't tell)

Right

I am trying to add this Library Thing to my blog.

And it's not working.

So I am going to paste it here and see what happens!

I love technology. And I hate it. I'm a letter writer. My first letter was to Father Christmas telling how good I had been and that Dad wanted rain, just not during harvest, and that my little brothers wanted bikes and my mother just wanted a bit of peace and quiet and a hot cup of tea and warm toast with butter and vegemite. I can't remember what I asked for. A book probably. Or fairy wings. I always wanted some fairy wings...

Email has been wonderful and email has been horrible for my letter writing. I found a letter my Nanna wrote to me a few years ago. Her eyesight had been shot for many years and the words ran in curves lines, straight off the page, like a photograph of striations in a cliff face along a river.

But just to see her words was a comfort. She died in June. She was one hundred. She had a grace and elegance and style. She was argumentative and political. And she liked everyone she met.

She couldn't understand how people in shops knew her name (it was written on the credit card) and she disliked being called 'Maud'. She was accepting of life. She's known skinny years, the depression, both wars. And she's knows luxe times as well, trips overseas, a beach house, a fancy new Ford sports car.

She encouraged my writing. She encouraged me in everything I did.  I can't remember her ever being cross with me. Perhaps she spoiled me.

I have her eternity ring, I like that her husband, my grandfather who I never knew, he gave it to her. And I like that though they were separated by death for other forty years, and Nanna had plenty of suitors, she never stopped loving him. And perhaps that was to Nanna's detriment as she was often lonely and enjoyed it when 'people who belonged to her' were about.

But we burried Nanna in the same plot as Russell (though there was not enough room on the headstone to put her name, so Mum had to have it re-sanded and engraved. We all thought Nanna would live forever. And she did. Living for a whole century is like living through and without time)

So, I have her ring, I wear it next to my engagement ring. I have the fat Buddha that sat under the wall heater. I have a painting her mother did. I have the wonderful old mirror that hung above the mantle that so often I looked into before I went out for the night.

But I really just wish I had her back. These things don't make me feel closer to her, not really. They are lovely reminders of my beautiful grandmother.

But really, I wish there was some kind of technology to let her know that I loved her. And that her kindness and gentleness towards me I will always treasure.

And feel just one more of those vice-like hugs she gave. The more frail she became the stronger her hugs. Like she felt like we were letting her go.

It's hard to say goodbye, isn't it?

I don't really know how.

Mum asked Nanna what the secret of living to one hundred was. Nanna replied that she had forgotten as she was now five hundred. And then she said with a kindly eye 'help others'.

Much like Gandhi when he said 'be the change you wish to see in the world'.

Not that Nanna would approve of me comparing her to Ghandhi. Or maybe she would. She could be grandiose at times.

Not like me at all.

Let's see if I can make this Library Thing work!

Have a lovely day,


Kind regards,

Catharine

Aint no mountain high enough

This morning I went for a run. I went yesterday. And the day before as well. When I say run, it goes like this: walk, turn on iPod, and listen to ‘Aint no mountain high enough’ and start running down Peck Avenue. Peck is a ‘not made road’ it runs all the way down the Merri Creek and is crossed by five or six busyish suburban streets. By the time Marvin Gaye gets to the first chorus I’ve hit my stride and I feel like Cathy Freeman. Well, a goddess sized Ms Freeman. Without the gold medal. You get the picture.

This morning it was raining lightly, I love the rain, so this is me; running, early on a Sunday morning, streets quite, iPod blaring. I stop for a bus on Fenacre. The bus is pulling into the stop to pick up a few bent Italian ladies for the 8am Latin Mass at St Monica’s. The driver smiles at me, I wave at him. We are good friends; I caught this bus to and from work five days a week for the past six years. The driver waves me across and I give him a salute. Then I come nose to nose with a maroon Commodore. I can’t hear the screech because of the iPod, but I can smell the breaks.

Four things I learnt on my run this morning.

1) It gets easier. Getting up at 5.45 was really tough for a while. My personal trainer, the lovely Luke, suggested I sleep in my running clothes. I tried this, and it worked because I couldn’t sleep all night with my shoes on so I got up at 4am. I have a love hate relationship with the morning. I love the idea of it, just not the practice. But after running few mornings a week for the last month I find I get the 3pm tantrums if I haven’t done some huffing and puffing in the morning. Mind out of the gutter people

2) Lemon Scented Gums smell amazing after rain. It’s like inhaling a lemon meringue pie. Or for the benefit of Luke the Diet Nazi it’s like smelling lemons. It just doesn’t sounds as pretty that way.

3) Crazy maroon Commodore drivers that pull out around stopped buses need their own special warning sign. Wanker. He was surprised that I went over and tapped, ok, banged, on his window and gesticulated wildly. I blame Marvin Gaye and the elevated serotonin levels. Double Wanker. I nearly flashed my badge and asked him to blow in the bag, then I remembered I wasn’t a cop. Triple Wanker.

4) The Strathmore News isn’t open at 7 on a Sunday, but Gusto is and they make these amazing raspberry ganache tarts that for some reason can’t last until I get home. Block your ears Luke, chocolate is the new banana.

So, in my first blog I promised you three things tomorrow, and you ended up getting four things six weeks later. No promises this time, just the offer to entertain you every now and again with am amusing story from a girl, who when faced with the eternal question ‘do you want fries with that’ says ‘bloody oath’.

Three things I learnt on my walk/jog/run/crawl

Yesterday I went for a jog. All my friends and family reading this just fell over. The last time I jogged was 1979 (see picture, I am in the top row, second from the right) and I was taking part in the school sports day. I was in grade 3. It was a small country school and every pupil went in every event. There were four teams, and the Redden's were all in Ridley. Sports day meant a break from the usual green and gold school uniforms. I got to wear a white skirt and a red top, and my mother put my hair in pigtails and I wore red ribbons in my hair. She sucked her breath in as she pulled my fine hair into two even pigtails, she held her breath until the band was secured, and then she exhaled, through the bobby pins still in her mouth. It was a warm late Autumn day. During the opening speeches all the students sat on the school oval and I made daisy chains out of dandelions. The events included shot put, discuss, long jump, tunnel ball and hurdles. Modified for our 7 year old bodies. We hopped, skipped and jumped for hours and hours. At lunch time we picnicked with our families. All that was left was the running and the awards. I come from a family of naturally gifted and competitive sports men and women. My Dad played football at a state level, my brothers were both involved in football, tennis and athletics at an inter-school level, my Grandmother was a champion tennis player and lawn bowler, and several of my cousins have played AFL football. Then there's me. Asthmatic. Talkative. A wee bit whinny. Interested in shoes and books and food. I've always been a keen sport watcher, not so great on the actual doing part. I inherited the competitive gene, just not the one for athleticism. Back to that warm Autumn afternoon on the Geranium School Oval. The running races began and I came a teary last in all of them. Stone motherless. Oblivious to the support and cheering of my three fans (Mum, Dad and little brother). I wanted to vanish down a rabbit hole. But the day was not done. The kids marathon was the last event. Not just a lap of the oval. A lap of the paddock that the oval sat in the middle of. As I grew up (I went to the same school for ten years) I realised that the 'marathon' was about 800 metres. Running on that warm September day if felt like a race from Mt Olympus to Timbuktu. As soon as the gun went off my classmates disappeared into the distance.I began the race. Swerving to avoid pot holes and jumping the mallee stumps. I ran and ran and breathed and breathed until it was like sucking air through a tiny tiny straw. My legs were willing, but my lungs were not. I gave up about a quarter of the way around. I sat down and put my head down and cried. I began scratching at the dirt, wondering if I could really dig to China. I heard someone run up beside me. It was my Dad. 'C'mon Princess, up you get'. 'But I don't want to. I can't. Even Mary Jane is beating me.' 'It's character building' (he still says this, seriously, I'm fine with an un-built character) 'And she's behind you.' 'Who?' 'Mary Jane'. So I got up, wiped a dirty tear across my cheek, and began jogging. And Dad ran beside me, offering gentle words of encouragement to his little less than sporty daughter. And eventually I finished. Panting and sobbing. My fans cheering wildly. Just ahead of Mary Jane.

The three things I learnt on my run yesterday? Come back tomorrow and I'll tell you.